Latin American studies in China (1949-2019): an institutional development perspective

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Latin American Studies in China have experienced a development from scratch, from stagnation to recovery, and even to the current "explosion". In order to fully and deeply grasp the current development and its future trend of Latin American Studies in China, this paper, from the perspective of institutional development and based on the first "Survey on the Development of Institutions of Latin American Studies in China" and the 40-year academic database of Journal of Latin American Studies, aims to analyze the development characteristics and transformation challenges confronting China's Latin American Studies, to reflect on China's current Latin American Studies and promote its reconstruction into the future.Over the past 70 years, Latin American Studies in China have made great progress in academic infrastructure building, while "policy-oriented" research has inhibited the vitality of academic research and restricted its effects on policy making. As a result, the offerings of Latin American Studies have always failed to meet China’s demand for knowing better Latin America. This gap reflects the absolute shortage of knowledge on Latin America and the relative surplus due to less-effective research. Consequentially, China's Latin American Studies are confronting the challenges of transformation in terms of research vision, methodologies and contents. In the new era, China's institutions and scholars of Latin American Studies are in dire need of modernizing their ideas and strengthening academic research with a broader worldwide vision, more scientific methodologies and more diversified contents, both for the purpose of enriching academic accomplishment and delivering well-grounded policy wisdom.